A Multi-client architecture for hybrid terrain rendering on mobile devices

Mobile devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or smart phones are rapidly increasing their graphics and networking capabilities. However, real-time rendering of large terrains is still a challenging task to accomplish in such limited devices. In this paper we describe the principles invo...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Noguera, José María, Segura Sánchez, Rafael Jesús, Ogáyar, Carlos, Joan Arinyo, Robert|||0000-0002-1896-2940
Tipo de recurso: informe técnico
Fecha de publicación:2010
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/88073
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/88073
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Terrain navigation
Terrain rendering
Mobile computing
Adaptive streaming
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Infografia
Descripción
Sumario:Mobile devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or smart phones are rapidly increasing their graphics and networking capabilities. However, real-time rendering of large terrains is still a challenging task to accomplish in such limited devices. In this paper we describe the principles involved in the design and development of a scalable client-server architecture for hybrid rendering of terrains over wireless networks on mobile devices. We have developed a hybrid adaptive streaming and rendering method based on a server-client approach. The rendering workload is distributed between a server and the clients and the terrain is partitioned into the close-range geometry and the background. The close-range geometry is downloaded from the database and rendered on the mobile client, and the background is portrayed as a view-dependent panoramic impostor and rendered by the server on demand then it is sent on request to the server for display. The system architecture is organized in three levels: the main server, the panorama server and the mobile device client. This architecture provides support for efficient delivery of geometry and impostors to mobile clients according to their capabilities. As a proof of concept, we have implemented a prototype and carried out exhaustive experiments considering different network scenarios and different number of connected clients. The analysis of the server workload and response times shows that our architecture achieves a great scalability and performance even when using low-end mobile devices.